Green-Eyed Demon by Wells Jaye

Author:Wells, Jaye [Wells, Jaye]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Hachette Digital
Published: 2011-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

17

An hour later, I found out the hard way that digging graves was far preferable to exhuming them. When Zenobia led me into the cemetery, I’d been expecting another one of New Orleans’s famous cities of the dead with stately mausoleums and tombs. Instead, Holt Cemetery was a collection of graves dug into the soggy Louisiana earth. Dilapidated wooden and pitted marble headstones jutted from the ground at odd angles like rotten teeth. Our footsteps crunched on seashell-and-gravel walkways overgrown with weeds.

As I trudged along, I mentally cursed Adam. Talk about pulling the short straw. He and Giguhl got to have all the fun while I was stuck on grave-robbing duty.

I tripped on a grave marker. The movement jostled Stryx’s cage, which sent the owl into another tizzy of rage. I held the cage as far from my torso as possible to avoid the swiping talons and beak.

“What’s the deal with this place?” I called over the owl’s racket. His annoying ass combined with the buzzing in my head did nothing to improve my mood.

Just like at the cemetery Adam and I chased Stryx into the other night, a low-level vibration hummed here. I popped my jaw to release the pressure building up in my head. I considered asking Zen if she felt it, too, but she didn’t show any signs of being affected by the pressure. She just marched ahead like a woman on a mission.

“Not all of New Orleans’s residents can afford fancy mausoleums like those found in the St. Louis or Lafayette cemeteries,” she said, following some invisible path through the place. “So the poor get buried in potter’s fields like this.”

I listened and followed her toward a row of graves near the back. Drooping oaks weighed down by Spanish moss slumped over the pitiful mementos left by mourners. Everything from matted teddy bears to Mardi Gras beads and plastic flowers to whiskey bottles decorated the pitiful mounds.

“Families get one plot,” she continued. “They have to pile the coffins on top of each other. And when the water table rises, bones pop up from the soil.” She kicked at something on the ground. I blinked at the femur that rolled from the overgrown brush.

She finally stopped at an unmarked mound under a lowhanging oak branch. She pointed to a spot under the tree. As I set the cage down in the shadows, I surveyed the grave.

Unlike most of the other plots we’d passed, this one wasn’t covered in weeds or mementos. For some reason the sight of bare soil seemed even more depressing. Maybe it was because the freshly turned earth indicated a recent death— or maybe it was the lack of anything signifying that someone cared enough about the grave’s resident to leave flowers or even a plank of wood indicating his or her identity.

Zen set down her leather satchel and withdrew a small shovel with a retractable handle.

“What the hell are you going to do with that?” I demanded.

She smiled. “I’m not doing anything.” I caught the spade easily and then almost immediately dropped it.

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